British Strategy: is it August 1911 all over again?

British Strategy: is it August 1911 all over again?

19 Sep 23
Posted by: Lt Gen Robert Fry
7 minutes, 6 seconds read
Message from the Editor

The author argues that Britain’s current grand strategy has the hallmarks of uncertainty, having not yet settled on a strictly continentalist, or purely maritime strategy, one way or the other. If the Armed Forces are to be deployed effectively, it is imperative that clarity replace the current strategic ambiguity. Originally published in The Article. A 5 minute read.

Military strategy is the pointy end of grand strategy, which itself is the aggregation of all the instruments of national power assembled in a design to fit the state’s requirements at any given time. The process of designing grand strategy is conventionally, but not invariably, led by politics and takes its greatest risks when politics and the military instrument get out of whack. Britain briefly had an air military strategy, between the fall of France in 1940 and D-Day in 1944, but for the rest of the modern era, the debate has been about whether a maritime (implying global) or land (implyin…

You are not currently logged in. Please sign in now or click here to join today.